Speaker 1: You know, there's this specific trope in horror movies that
I've I've always found to be just the most unsettling thing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, which one.
Speaker 1: It isn't the jump scare. Yeah, And it isn't the
guy in the mass chasing you with the chainsaw or whatever.
It's that scene at.
Speaker 2: The very end, right, the false ending, exactly.
Speaker 1: The false ending. The sun is coming up and the
police have finally arrived. The music swells, and the survivors
are all wrapped in those shock blankets, thinking they're safe. Right.
You think it's over, You think the monster is dead,
and then the camera just pans down to the dirt
and the ground starts to shift, just a.
Speaker 2: Little bit, sand reaching up from the ground.
Speaker 1: And reaching up because the monster isn't dead. It was
just waiting. And I feel like, I really think that
is exactly where we're living right now in the public consciousness.
Speaker 2: With these zombie scams.
Speaker 1: Yes, bomby scanals, these events that we're told are totally finished.
The verdicts are read, the cell doors slam shut, and
the media tells us, Okay, show's over, nothing to see here,
go back to your lives.
Speaker 2: But the stench, it never leaves.
Speaker 1: The stench never really leaves the room.
Speaker 2: It's the stench of unfinished business, I think. And usually
when a scandal just refuses to die, it's because the
root system is much much deeper than the public was
ever allowed to see. We trapped off the reads, we
chalk off the weeds, but the roots are still wrapping
around the entire foundation of the house.
Speaker 1: That is a terrifying but honestly perfect image for what
we're doing today. Welcome to Thrilling Threads. I'm your host,
and I'm going to tell you today's thread is one
of those that if you pull it too hard, you
might just unravel the whole sweater.
Speaker 2: And I'm here to make sure we don't just pull
the thread, but we actually look at what's being exposed underneath,
because usually when we talk about the specific topic, the
conversation gets completely hijacked by gossip. Oh absolutely, it comes
about who was at the party, who flew on the plane.
But today we are really looking at the machinery.
Speaker 1: Machinery. I like that because we are of course talking
about the Epstein files, but not the old one, well,
not the ones you heard about years ago. We were
talking about the massive twenty twenty six Department of Justice release.
Speaker 2: The big dump, the big one.
Speaker 1: Just when the world thought they knew the shape of
this thing, the DOJ dumps millions, literally millions of documents.
It's staggering, and suddenly the map of the world just
looks different. We're seeing resignations in countries I didn't even
know where involved. We're seeing new.
Speaker 2: Footage, a total domino effect.
Speaker 1: A domino effect that is toppling people who probably thought
they were completely safe, people who were sleeping soundly in
their beds for the last decade.
Speaker 2: It is a fascinating case study in information transparency, or rather,
I guess the failure of containment.
Speaker 1: Failure of containment is a great way to put it.
Speaker 2: For years, there was this concerted effort to contain this network,
to isolate it to one bad actor and one bad accomplice.
But these new files they proved that this wasn't just
a criminal enterprise, it as a system. It was a
systemic failure of global proportions. We're talking about a web
that entangled the British monarchy, the Norwegian government, trade secrets,
and yes, somehow dinosaur hunting and the Dakotas, which.
Speaker 1: Is look, we're going to get to the dinosaurs. I
promise you, if you're listening, we will get to the dinosaurs,
because I still cannot wrap my head around it.
Speaker 2: It's bizarre.
Speaker 1: It is so bizarre. But before we dive into the
deep end here, we do have to do the responsible thing.
We are friends having a chat and we like to
keep it light where we can. But the source material
we are covering today is heavy, very heavy. It deals
with trafficking, It deals with the abuse and exploitation of miners.
Speaker 2: It's distressing stuff. And while we are analyzing the political
and social fallout, we can never lose sight of the
fact that at the center of this spider web are
real human beings who are hurt real people. Because this
girl deserves the truth. That is the rallying cry we
are hearing from the survivors this year.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so if you're listening out there, just know that's
the water we're swimming in today. Now, let's start with
the silence.
Speaker 2: The loud sound islends.
Speaker 1: Exactly because for a scandal that is making this much noise,
the person at the center of it is being remarkably quiet.
Speaker 2: The silence of Gislaine Maxwell.
Speaker 1: The date was February ninth, I feel like everyone in
Washington had this circled in red ink on their calendars.
Speaker 2: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Speaker 1: Yes, they finally dragged her, well virtually at least, out
of her cell to testify, and.
Speaker 2: The expectation was just sky high. You really have to
understand the context here. She's already convicted.
Speaker 1: Right, She's been away for a while, She's been.
Speaker 2: In prison since that twenty twenty one condition. She is
serving twenty years.
Speaker 1: Just a long time, A very long time.
Speaker 2: In the world of criminal justice. Usually, when you are
that far down the road and the DOJ releases a
mountain of evidence against you and your associates, you start
to think about self preservation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want a deal.
Speaker 2: You start to think maybe if I talk, I can
get better conditions, Maybe I can get a reduced sentence.
Speaker 1: That's what I would think. I mean, the ship has
already sun. Why are you still bailing water? The committee
wanted to know about the enablers.
Speaker 2: The people in the shadows.
Speaker 1: The DOJ files have millions of pages, but there are
these massive black holes where contexts should be. They wanted
her to connect the dots. Who knew what, when did
they know it?
Speaker 2: And what happened, and she gave them nothing nothing. She
sat there via video link from federal prison, and she
pleaded the Fifth over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I want to stop on this because it drives me
completely insane. You are in prison, you are literally wearing
the jumpsuit. Yes, you've been convicted by a jury of
your peers. What self are you incriminating? You're already incriminated.
Speaker 2: Well, see this is where the legal strategy gets super interesting,
and it tells us a lot about what she's actually
afraid of.
Speaker 1: Okay, break that down.
Speaker 2: Yes, she is serving a federal sentence, but the Fifth
Amendment protects you from any testimony that could expose you
to further criminal prosecution.
Speaker 1: Okay, so like what parking tickets tax FRAU.
Speaker 2: But the bigger thinks state charges. The federal government has
had its turn. But if she admits to a specific
act in that deposition, say facilitating a meeting in Manhattan
on a specific day in two thousand and five, that
opens her up to prosecution by the Manhattan District attorney.
Or if she admits to something that happened in Florida
or New Mexico, double jeopardy only applies. To being tried
for the same crime by the same sovereign. Oh, I see,
a state and the federal government are different sovereigns.
Speaker 1: So she's basically navigating a minefield right now. If she
steps one inch to the left, boom, New York indiczer,
one inch to the right, boom, New Mexico, indiczer.
Speaker 2: Exactly. But there is a second layer to the silence.
It's not just about legal jeopardy.
Speaker 1: It's about leverage, leverage from inside prison.
Speaker 2: Yes, in the prison system and in the criminal underworld. Honestly,
knowledge is currency. As long as she stays silent, she
is the vault.
Speaker 1: She holds the keys, and if she opens the wall, she.
Speaker 2: Loses her value. And she potentially makes very powerful enemies
who are currently sleeping quite well because she hasn't named them. Wow,
by taking the fifth she is signaling to the enablers,
the people whose names haven't come out yet, I'm still
holding the line. I'm still protecting you.
Speaker 1: That is chilling. It's like a mafia movie. Yeah, it's
oh Marta.
Speaker 2: It is exactly Olmerta, and it is incredibly frustrating for
the Oversight Committee. You had Republicans and Democrats there.
Speaker 1: Which let's be honest, Getting them to agree on lunch
is hard enough these days.
Speaker 2: Very true, but they were completely united in this fury.
They want a clean house. They know this scandal is
a rot that is damaging the reputation of the entire
political and business class. They want to cut out the cancer.
Speaker 1: But Maxwell is refusing to hand over the scalpel. She
won't do it, so she's holding the line. But the
thing about damming up a river is that eventually the
water finds a crack somewhere else. And while she's sitting
there silent in Florida, looking across the Atlantic, the dam
is definitely breaking in London.
Speaker 2: Oh, London is a mess. Right now, we have to
talk about Prince Andrew or, as the police files are
calling him now, Andrew mount Baton Windsor.
Speaker 1: Can we just pause on that, Andrew mount Batton Windsor no, hrh, No, Prince.
Speaker 2: Just Andrew, just a regular citizen on paper, it.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a guy who works in accounting.
Speaker 2: It's a deliberate stripping of status. He was stripped of
his titles by King Charles back in twenty twenty four,
evicted from the Royal Lodge.
Speaker 1: Which was a huge deal at the time a massive deal.
Speaker 2: But what's happening now with these twenty twenty six files
is moving this from family disgrace to national security threat.
Speaker 1: We have breaking news from the Thames Valley Police. They
confirmed they are quote assessing claims end quote. But the
thing that blew my mind in these new documents it
isn't the parties, It isn't the social stuff. It's the emails,
the emails, the trade secrets leak. This is wild, This
is so wild. So back in twenty ten, Andrew is
the UK's Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, which
honestly to me always sounded like a completely made up job.
Speaker 2: A ceremonial title basically yeah.
Speaker 1: Like go shake hands and eat distinctively small sandwiches.
Speaker 2: Is a role that involves a lot of ceremony, yes,
but it also comes with clearance. You are receiving confidential
briefings from the government. You are the face of UK
economic strategy abroad.
Speaker 1: Right, You're representing the Crown's business interest exactly.
Speaker 2: And the files show that Andrew was receiving official reports
about his visits to Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam and highly
specific investment briefs on Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Afghanistan in twenty ten.
Speaker 2: Hellman Province, to be exact, Hellman.
Speaker 1: That was the center of the conflict, that was an
active war zone. Why is the Royal Trade Envoy getting
investment briefs on a war.
Speaker 2: Zone reconstruction contracts, mining rights, lithium infrastructure. That information is
worth billions to the right people. Oh wow, knowing where
the UK government is planning to pour money or where
they are pulling out that is market moving information.
Speaker 1: And here is the detail that made my jaw just
hit the floor.
Speaker 2: The timestamp, the five minute gap.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, Andrew receives a confidential report from a special advisor.
It lands in his inbox and literally five minutes later,
five minutes he forwards it to Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: Think about that action for a second. You get a
document marked confidential, you don't read it, digest it, and
then days later mention it in casual conversation. You immediately
reflexively forward it to a financier in New York.
Speaker 1: I don't even text my wife back that fast.
Speaker 2: It implies a reporting structure.
Speaker 1: Whoa say that again?
Speaker 2: It implies that he was reporting in in the intelligence world.
This looks like asset recruitment.
Speaker 1: You break that down for us.
Speaker 2: You have someone in a position of power Andrew, who
has access to non public government information, and you have
a handler Epstein, who has cultivated a relationship where that
asset feels compelled or obligated to share that information immediately.
Speaker 1: So Ft wasn't just a bad friend. He was essentially
running a royal asset.
Speaker 2: That is the implication that Thames Valley Police and the
intelligence communities have to be looking at right now. Why
did Epstein need to know about Afghan reconstrucuction? Was he
trading on it following the money exactly? Was he shorting
companies involved in the region, or was he using that
information to trade favors with other.
Speaker 1: Governments like, hey, I know what the British are planning
in Helmant.
Speaker 2: That is a very powerful card to play at a
diplomatic poker table.
Speaker 1: It takes the whole Oh I stated his house because
it was a convenient excuse and just incinerates it. This
wasn't convenience, this was business. And their own family definitely
knows it.
Speaker 2: They absolutely know it. Look at the reaction Prince William
and Kate, Princess Catherine.
Speaker 1: They broke silence, which never happens. The royal motto is
never complain, never explain. They usually just ride it out
until the next Corgi is.
Speaker 2: Born, exactly. But they released a statement they said they
are quote deeply concerned and their thoughts remain focused on
the victims.
Speaker 1: And Royal speak deeply concerned is basically them running around
with their hair on fires screaming.
Speaker 2: It is a total severance. They are cutting the cord
completely by focusing on the victims. They are morally distancing
themselves from Andrew. They are signaling to the British public
we are not him. He is not us right, we
are on the side of justice. He is on the
side of whatever this is. It's a survival mechanism for
the monarchy. They realize that if they try to protect
him now with these trade secret leaks, the institution itself
might not survive the fallout.
Speaker 1: It's brutal, but it makes sense. If your uncle is
forwarding state secrets to a predator, you don't invite him
to Christmas.
Speaker 2: You certainly don't let him keep the keys to the palace.
Speaker 1: But see, this is what's so fascinating. By the twenty
twenty six release, we used to think of this as
a US scandal with a sort of British subplot. But
these files, they are dragging in the whole world. I
was looking through the source Allen and I saw Norway
and I thought, wait, what the Norwegians?
Speaker 2: All right, the neutral good guys.
Speaker 1: They're the good guys. They have great healthcare and fjords.
What are they doing in here?
Speaker 2: The scandal respects no borders at all. We need to
talk about mona jewle monoicule.
Speaker 1: And this isn't some random socialite.
Speaker 2: This is a heavy hitter, absolute titan of diplomacy. She
was central to the Oslo piece process. She has been
the ambassador to the UN, to the UK. She's currently
or was until this week, the Norwegian ambassador to Jordan
and Iraq.
Speaker 1: And she just quit, resigned.
Speaker 2: Gone, citing a quote serious lapse.
Speaker 1: In judgment because of the files.
Speaker 2: Because the scrutiny on her past contacts with Epstein became
completely unsustainable. Now, usually when a diplomat meets a financier,
they can spin it. Oh, we were discussing global aid,
we were discussing philanthropy.
Speaker 1: H the standard cover story it is, but.
Speaker 2: There was a detail in the Norwegian press that you
really can't spin the will, but bil reports are coming
out that Jeffrey Epstein left money to Monajul's family in
his will.
Speaker 1: Now you have to ask yourself why. I mean, I
have friends I've known since kindergarten. If I die tomorrow,
they're getting nothing. My cat gets the apartment, my wife
gets the insurance. Why is an American financier leaving cash
to the family of a top Norwegian diplomat.
Speaker 2: That is the exact question that the Norwegian authorities are
probing right now. They are investigating whether she received quote
improper benefits because in the world of diplomacy money moving
from a private influence peddler to a government official that
smells like a bribe or a retainer or retainer for
what though access legitimacy. Think about it. If you are
Jeffrey Epstein and you are trying to rehabilitate your image
after your two thousand and eight conviction, who do you
need to be seen with?
Speaker 1: Respectable people?
Speaker 2: You need to be seen with the peacemakers, the nobel
caliber people. If you are standing next to mona Jewel,
you look like a statesman, you look like a humanitarian.
Speaker 1: So he was basically buying reputation shield.
Speaker 2: He was laundering his reputation through their credibility. And the
fact that money changed hands or was slated to change hands,
suggests that this wasn't just a casual friendship. It was
a transaction.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And for Norway, a country that prides itself on transparency
and ethical governance, this is a massive blow. The Foreign
minister calling it a breach of trust. That is diplomatic
speak for this is an absolute catastrophe.
Speaker 1: It really reinforces the idea that Epstein wasn't just a
creep in a mansion. He was an intelligence broker. He
collected people, He collected princes, he collected ambassadors. He embedded
himself into the machinery of the state, whether that was
the UK, or Norway or the US.
Speaker 2: He was a virus in the operating system of the
global elite.
Speaker 1: That is terrifying, just terrifying. Okay, I need to take
a breath, because not everything in these files is international
espionage and high treason. Some of it is just weird,
very weird, like I think I eat some bad cheese
and I'm hallucinating weird.
Speaker 2: We are definitely entering the surreal portion of the deep dive.
Speaker 1: Yes, we have to talk about the dinosaurs.
Speaker 2: I still can't believe this is real.
Speaker 1: I swear to you, the listener, I am not making
this up. The files include emails from twenty twelve between
Epstein and Gislaine Maxwell. They are planning a trip, not
to Paris, not to a private island, to the Pine
Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for bad lands. And who
was on the guest list for this little excursion? RFK Junior,
Robert F.
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior and his family.
Speaker 1: And what are they doing. Are they holding some secret
political summit. No, they are digging for dinosaur bones.
Speaker 2: A fossil hunting trip.
Speaker 1: Can you picture this tableau? You have the air to
the Kennedy dynasty, You have a British socialite, yes, you
have a convicted sex offender, and they were all wearing
khakis wandering around the desert looking for a t rex.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a really bad indie movie script, but
it actually tells us something very important about how Epstein
operated in that twenty ten to twenty fifteen window.
Speaker 1: Oh so, like, what's the strategy there?
Speaker 2: Normalization? RFK Junior has come out and defended this. He says, Look,
these were innocent family outings. I call them fossil excursions.
My wife and kids were there. I didn't know the
extent of his crimes.
Speaker 1: He went on the plane twice for these trips, Yes.
Speaker 2: Twice, and in a way that defense highlights exactly how
Epstein hid in plane sight. He used geek chic, he
used science. He presented himself not as a predator but
as an eccentric billionaire philanthropy who just loved science.
Speaker 1: Hey, come flaw my jet. We're gonna support paleontology.
Speaker 2: Exactly Who says no to that? If a billionaire offers
to fly you to a dig site to find a
triceratops and you can bring your kids, it disarms you.
It makes them seem wholesome. He can't be a monster.
He loves dinosaurs. It's a very sophisticated form of camouflage.
Speaker 1: It's the eccentric uncle camouflage. Oh, it's just Jeffrey. He's
wear he likes bones. Meanwhile he's running a trafficking ring.
Speaker 2: Precisely, it shows how willing high society was to accept
the eccentric label as a cover for the criminal label.
Speaker 1: Speaking of labels and weird mixups. We have to take
a quick detour to clear the name of a legend.
Because the Internet is a dangerous place and sometimes it
gets things very, very wrong.
Speaker 2: We do need to issue a correction on behalf of
the skateboard community.
Speaker 1: Tony Hawk, the Birdman, the man who could do a
nine hundred. He got swept up in this twenty twenty
six release, but not in the way you'd think.
Speaker 2: The Internet saluts just went crazy.
Speaker 1: People started finding the name Epstein connected to Tony Hawk's
wedding photos, and suddenly Twitter or x or whatever we're
calling it this week explodes. Tony Hawk got married on
Epstein's island. Tony Hawk is an enabler.
Speaker 2: Which would be a massive scandal if it were true.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine do a kickflip on Little Saint James.
Speaker 2: It's terrible.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry, but Tony Hawk had to go
on Instagram to debunk this, and the explanation is honestly
the funniest part of this whole dark saga.
Speaker 2: It's a classic case of failing to do your homework.
Tony Hawk got married in Fiji in two thousand and six.
Not the Caribbean Fiji, but the photographer at the wedding.
Speaker 1: His name was Mark Epstein. Mark, no relation to Jeffrey whatsoever,
Just a guy named Mark who takes nice photos of weddings.
Speaker 2: But the Internet saw Epstein and wedding and Tony Hawk
and just connected the dots with a permanent marker.
Speaker 1: It's cautionary tale, right. We have millions of files here.
There are gonna be names that match other names. There
are gonna be wild coincidences.
Speaker 2: It is when you have a data dump of this magnitude,
literally millions of pages, the signal to noise can be tricky.
You have legitimate smoking guns like Prince Andrew's emils, and
then you have false positives like the wedem photographer. We
have to be disciplined, We have to verify. We can't
just ruin a skateboard legend's reputation because he hired a
guy with an unfortunate last name.
Speaker 1: Do a kickflip out of my board. Yeah, that's what
I posted.
Speaker 2: It was the perfect response, a little bit of levity,
but it also shows the panic level.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: Everyone is scrambling, Everyone is checking their old calendars. Did
I meet a guy named jeff in twenty eleven? Did
I hire a photographer named Epstein. The paranoia is very real.
Speaker 1: Okay, we've had our moment of levity with the skater
and the dinosaurs, but now we really need to pivot
back because buried in these files is something that isn't
funny at all, and it isn't a mix up. It's
a look directly into the eyes of the monster.
Speaker 2: The twenty ten deposition video.
Speaker 1: This footage surfaced in the new release. It's from a
civil suit two years after his two thousand and eight conviction.
So set the scene for us. He's done his sweetheart
jail time in Florida, he's out, he's back in New
York and he is being questioned by lawyers for the victims.
You've seen the video. Describe the vibe in the room.
Speaker 2: It is chillingly mundane. He's sitting there, He's not powering,
He's not ashamed. If anything, he looks bored. He looks
like a CEO dealing with the minor compliance issue. Arrogant,
Beyond arrogant. It's a complete dismissal of the reality of
the situation. The lawyers are asking him about as guilty plea.
They ask, essentially, do you have any remorse for what
you admitted to doing regarding a miner?
Speaker 1: What does he say?
Speaker 2: He starts playing games. He gets argumentative. But the most
shocking part, the part that really reveals his psychology, is
when he claims he didn't know who his accuser was.
Speaker 1: Wait, he pleaded guilty to a crime involving a specific victim.
It's in the court record, and two years later he's
saying I don't know her.
Speaker 2: He says, I don't know who that is. The attorney
is visibly confused. You can see him pause on the tape.
He asks, why did you plead guilty if you didn't
know the identity of the victim? And Epstein just shrugs.
He basically implies that he pleaded guilty just to make
the case go away. To him, the legal system wasn't
a judgment on his morality. It was just a business transaction.
I paid a fine, I sat in a room for
a few months, Now leave me alone.
Speaker 1: That is pure gaslighting, but it's gas lighting on a
legal record.
Speaker 2: It's sociopathic compartmentalization. In his mind, he hadn't done anything wrong.
He was just the victim of a system that didn't
understand his lifestyle. And then when the lawyer presses him.
When the questions get too close to the truth, the
mask slips a little and he retreats into legal gibberish.
Speaker 1: The Amendment salad.
Speaker 2: It really is a salad. He starts rattling them off.
My attorneys advised me, I must assert my sixth Amendment right,
my Fifth Amendment right, and my fourteenth Amendment right.
Speaker 1: He's just throwing numbers at the wall.
Speaker 2: He is. He's trying to wrap himself in the Constitution.
But what you are seeing is a man who is
terrified of losing control, yet refuses to give an inch.
He won't say I'm sorry, he won't say I did it.
He just says I have rights. It destroys the idea
that he was ever rehabilitated. The two thousand and eight
jail time did nothing. He came out the other side
just as defiant, just as predatory, and just as convinced
of his own invincibility.
Speaker 1: It's hard to watch, but I think it's necessary to
watch because it reminds us why this fight is still
happening in twenty twenty six. He never cared, so the
world has to care for him.
Speaker 2: That's the transition from the silence of the perpetrator to
the voice of the survivors, and.
Speaker 1: That voice was louder than ever at the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Super Bowl twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about a platform. You've got one hundred
million people watching. You're sitting there, eating your nachos, waiting
for the halftime show, expecting a beer commercial or a
truck commercial, and then the screen just goes black.
Speaker 2: It was a PSA produced by World Without Exploitation, and
it sucked the air out of the room.
Speaker 1: Describe it for the listeners who might have missed it.
I don't know how you could have missed it.
Speaker 2: It was visually very stark, no music, just visuals. It
featured multiple women survivors standing together in a line. They
were holding photos of their younger selves, the ages they
were when they were trafficked, but on the photos there
was black tape.
Speaker 1: Over their mouths, the redaction bars.
Speaker 2: Exactly, the black bars of censorship. It was a powerful
visual metaphor. The message was the abuse silenced us, then
the government is silencing us now.
Speaker 1: Because that's the core issue with this twenty twenty six release,
right right, we're calling at the release, but the survivors
are saying it's incomplete.
Speaker 2: That's the controversy. We had the Epstein Files Transparency Act
signed into law. It was supposed to open the books,
but the survivors in this PSA made a specific claim.
They said, the government is holding six million files and
we have only seen about three million.
Speaker 1: So we're literally only seeing half the movie.
Speaker 2: That is their contention. They claimed the other three million
are still sealed or so heavily redacted that they are useless.
Speaker 1: Three million files. That's not a folder, that's a library.
What could possibly be in there?
Speaker 2: That's the question. The PSA ended with a direct call
to action. They called out Attorney General Pam Bondi by name.
They urged her to release the rest and the tagline
it just broke my heart. This girl deserves the truth.
Speaker 1: This girl deserves the truth. It really cuts through all
the complexity. We can talk about trade secrets and diplomatic
protocols and legal strategies all day, but at the end
of the day, there's a girl in a photo with
tape over her mouth who was failed by the system.
Speaker 2: And continues to be failed by the system as long
as those files are hidden. Their argument is that privacy
protections shouldn't apply to a criminal conspiracy. They're saying, stop
protecting the powerful. Let us see the whole picture.
Speaker 1: So let's zoom out. Let's look at that picture. We
have spent the last hour pulling these threads. We've got
Gislaine Maxwell silent in a cell holding the keys to
the vault. We've got a print strip of his titles
because he was leaking secrets to a predator. We've got
a Norwegian ambassador resigning in disgrace. We've got RFK Junior
digging for dinosaurs to normalize a criminal. We've got Tony
Hawk dodging internet mobs. We've got Epstein on tape denying reality.
And we've got a group of survivors on national television
screaming that we still only know half the story.
Speaker 2: When you lay it out like that, it's just overwhelm
it really is. It paints a picture of a deep
state of corruption. And I don't mean that in the
conspiracy theory way. I mean it in the literal way.
A state within a state, a network of influence that
bypass laws, bypassed borders, and bypassed morality. The twenty twenty
six release proves that this wet is still untangling the
shockwaves are still knocking people over. Years later.
Speaker 1: It feels like we're in the middle of the movie,
not the end. The zombie scandal is still walking.
Speaker 2: We are definitely not at the end, and that brings
us back to the survivor's point. If what we have
seen so far in just the released half of the
files was enough to disgrace a royal, topple an ambassador,
and panic half of Washington, you have to ask yourself
the big.
Speaker 1: Scary question, what is in the other half.
Speaker 2: What is in the three million files that the government
is still afraid to show us? Who else is in there?
What other trade secrets, what other deals, what other compromises.
Speaker 1: That is the thought that is going to keep me
up at night. If this is the stuff they let
us see, what is the stuff they are hiding?
Speaker 2: It should keep us.
Speaker 1: We want to hear from you. This is thrilling threads,
and we want to know what you think about this
thread we've pulled. What is your stand on the Transparency Act?
Do you think privacy should protect the powerful or do
the victims deserve every single name named, no matter the
collateral damage.
Speaker 2: It's the ultimate ethical question of our time, privacy versus justice?
Speaker 1: Who wins, leave a comment, let us know, and keep
molling at those threads. You never know what will unravel.
Speaker 2: Stay curious, stay critical.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to thrilling threads. We'll catch you on
the next one.
Speaker 2: Goodbye,